Smereka
is a freeware program that allows you to organize your data in an
hierarchical,
searchable database stored in a single file.

What is Smereka
needed for?

Long-time
users of personal computers accumulate a lot of various data. File
system is a flexible and universal means of data storage. However,
storing information in many separate files is not always a good idea.

If
you have a lot of text notes, saved webpages or random files,
organizing and navigating them can be difficult. Performing search over
those pieces is possible only when you have special search services
installed and activated on your computer. Not all of them support tags
(text labels which are used by blog-services for organizing posts.)

In
case you need to share some of your files with someone else, the
recipient won't be able to use your search facility easily, even if
it's installed on your machine. You will have to send one monolythic
archive, which is almost totally unsearchable, and describe its
contents independently in a the letter body.

Moreover, if you
work with texts often and use "Word" to type and store your ideas,
articles, snippets from the Internet or important emails, then you know
how cumbersome it is to launch massive "Office" software to view a
couple of paragraphs of text.

How does Smereka
solve these problems?

Your
files and notes can be stored in a single file - Smereka database. This
file is being indexed on the fly, so you can search your information
items as soon as they are added to the database. All information items
- files, notes and even folders - can be tagged to create "alternative
hierarchy".

The search capabilities of "Smereka" are extended by a
hierarchical system of item storage (in a tree). This allows you to
sort your items into a tree-like structure. You can move, copy items
from branch to branch, assign icons to them and more.

Your
information (text, offline webpages) appear on the screen instantly, as
soon as you click a tree item - you do not need to run an external
program in most cases.

And of course, you can share the
database. Having received a single file, your peer may instantly browse
all the array of your data, search it or export information items to
disk.

When should I use
Smereka?

Here are typlical cases of freeform database usage:

organizing
snippets of text information:
you are accumulating small, independent text files and saved webpages.
They are used to store ideas, notes, article archive, etc.

data
mining: you
are researching some topic. You need to save and analyze a lot of
diverse information, which is located on different webpages, in
different text files. You also want to save relevant discussions, IM
chats etc.

project
management: you are leading a project, which requires
organizing and storing a great
quantity of artifacts: documents, important e-mails, chat transcripts,
ideas, brainstorm protocols etc. In addition to specialized tools, such
as MS projects, CMS or bug trackers, a personal database helps a
manager to put pieces of informationtogether, which otherwise would not
"fit" into these large and formal tools. Flexible reminders can be
attached to any item and keep you track your project.

structured
information exchange:
you need to send your colleague a set of file together with some
relevant instructions. You can attach files to the database as info
elements, and insert text items as child (or parent) nodes.

When I shouldn't
use Smereka?

In
all cases when regular disk files and folders are sufficient for your
purposes. Smereka wasn't designed to replace or duplicate the file
system.

How much does Smereka cost?How
can I support this project?

Smereka Personal DB is free. However, if you would like to support the developer and enjoy more
functionality, please consider upgrading to
Smereka TreeProjects. It offers the functionality of Smereka
Personal DB with added features and even better user interface at an
affordable price.

Who wrote Smereka?

Smereka is being developed by Yaroslav
Pidstryhach. I come from Ukraine, work commercially as a programmer,
and Smereka is one of my non-commercial hobby projects. I use Smereka
every day and can't imagine managing my other projects without it.